Murder on Ice by Ted Wood Read Free Book Online

looked at me honestly. "I don't know. There were four of us. What did she look like?"
    I described the girl to her but she shook her head.
    "You were part of the same organization. You must know her."
    "I do. But not her name. Not her real name, anyway."
    "Were you working under some kind of security?"
    She nodded almost eagerly. She wanted me to know. "It was very tight. All we used were first names, and I don't think they were all real."
    It didn't look as if she was going to be much help, but she was all I had. I pushed a little harder. "What names did you use in your group?"
    The girl sniffed and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. She looked as frail and vulnerable as a ten-year-old. "She called herself Katie. Then there were two others, Rachael and Freddie. And me, of course."
    "Freddie, was that a man?" Men joined feminist groups, supported them, anyway. I'd seen them in the parades when I was a young policeman just back from Viet Nam and angry at all the protesters.
    "No." The girl was sure of that. "She called herself Freddie because she wanted to be like a man. But she wasn't—she was a girl, my age, about."
    "Did this Katie come up here with the rest of you, or did she come with someone else?"
    The girl looked at me levelly, telling the truth without reservation. "She came with a guy. She called him her boyfriend, but I don't think there was anything between them."
    "Did you hear his name? Did you ever meet him?"
    She shook her head. A strand of her mousy hair had come undone, and it wagged in front of her forehead like an antenna. "I never met him. She wouldn't introduce him."
    "Did she give you any idea of what he looked like? Did she tell you he was dark, fair, tall, short?"
    She pursed her lips and shook her head. I thought for a moment she would not speak, but she was thinking. Finally she said, "She called him a rough diamond once. Said we shouldn't judge by appearances when we met him."
    Rough diamond! Scratch Nighswander. You could put him in dungarees and hand him a shovel and he would still come out a smoothie. If he hadn't killed this Katie, who had? And why?
    I backed away from that line of questioning and tried for more background. It might loosen up something in her memory or lead me to the rest of the gang. "How did you meet up with the others?"
    This was more personal than she liked. She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and began folding it into tiny tucks. "I was approached."
    "Who by?"
    "I don't know her name. She came up to me in court, afterward, and asked me if I'd be interested in joining a group that would make men sorry for the way they abused us."
    That raised a lot of questions that I stored in my head. What was she doing in court, for one thing. And how did the woman who approached her know that this particular skinny girl was anti-men? But that could all wait for the brandy and cigars after we'd consumed the worthwhile evidence, if she had any to give me.
    "Could you tell me about the woman who came up to you—her name, what she looked like, what she said to you, anything you can remember?" I asked it softly and she did not answer at once, just kept on folding the handkerchief until I reminded her, "A member of your group has been killed. If I can find the person at the center of the group, I can let her know. She can warn the others to be on their guard."
    Now she looked up, keeping her hands busy, pitty-patting the folded handkerchief. "Is that what you'd do, really?"
    "Straight up." In the mood of this interrogation I sketched a cross over my heart with my right hand. It worked. Over the next five minutes she gave me all the information she had.
    She had been the victim of an attempted rape. She had accepted a ride home from some guy she met at a party. He had been acquitted because the judge thought she should have shown better judgment than to go off with a stranger. As she was leaving the court, humiliated, while the accused was shaking hands with his friends, she had been